I left because I was physically infected with leptospirosis, a cattle disease, twice. One of the things about it is if you get it treated, it's not so bad, but if you leave it it rips the hell out of you. Problem is, the symptoms are pretty generic in the early stages and when I first caught it in the late eighties, they could only find it in your blood during one of its brief active periods. So they didn't really do much in the way of proper treatment because they didn't want to start treatment until they had confirmed that I had it. I had a bloodtest a week for a year, which totally failed to cure my fear of needles, but did eventually find lepto in my system, by which time I was recovering anyway. *grin*
After the second infection, which left me off work for twelve months, I was warned by the docs that as far as they know, half the people who get infected a third time die. I still would have stayed droving if I had no family. I left because I didn't want mum, dad and my girlfriend worrying about if I was going to get infected again.
Most recently the doctors are blaming scar tissue in my brain on lepto, mainly because lepto can cause meningitis, but I think it's simply become a handy hold-all for the docs. "hmmm... your leg has fallen off... it may be a delayed side effect of the leptospirosis..." *sigh* Though it is a fact that I rarely had headaches before infection and after infection started getting headaches and migraines... So maybe I'm just being a whiney bitch :P
And I still want to go back to droving. I don't care that incidents of lepto infection are increasing and that it took years to get my fitness back from the last dose. I love the work and the pay is glorious. Every now and then I still look at droving jobs at various sheds and consider it. Shaz always knows when I've found a droving job by accident, because I throw the paper across the room :P
But I love Sharon and it's not worth worrying her. Going bush is a way to give me a chunk of what I need without going back to droving. Finding excuses to drive over the Nullabor are another way. If the move to the red centre goes ahead (and there's no reason why it shouldn't) that'll put me in the sort of environment I love with mimimal chance of reinfection.
I don't have to be a drover, but it's the outdoor work I'd most like to do. I'm thinking of trying out for a guide position if we get established at Yulara.
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Date: 2005-03-18 12:50 am (UTC)I left because I was physically infected with leptospirosis, a cattle disease, twice. One of the things about it is if you get it treated, it's not so bad, but if you leave it it rips the hell out of you. Problem is, the symptoms are pretty generic in the early stages and when I first caught it in the late eighties, they could only find it in your blood during one of its brief active periods. So they didn't really do much in the way of proper treatment because they didn't want to start treatment until they had confirmed that I had it. I had a bloodtest a week for a year, which totally failed to cure my fear of needles, but did eventually find lepto in my system, by which time I was recovering anyway. *grin*
After the second infection, which left me off work for twelve months, I was warned by the docs that as far as they know, half the people who get infected a third time die. I still would have stayed droving if I had no family. I left because I didn't want mum, dad and my girlfriend worrying about if I was going to get infected again.
Most recently the doctors are blaming scar tissue in my brain on lepto, mainly because lepto can cause meningitis, but I think it's simply become a handy hold-all for the docs. "hmmm... your leg has fallen off... it may be a delayed side effect of the leptospirosis..." *sigh* Though it is a fact that I rarely had headaches before infection and after infection started getting headaches and migraines... So maybe I'm just being a whiney bitch :P
And I still want to go back to droving. I don't care that incidents of lepto infection are increasing and that it took years to get my fitness back from the last dose. I love the work and the pay is glorious. Every now and then I still look at droving jobs at various sheds and consider it. Shaz always knows when I've found a droving job by accident, because I throw the paper across the room :P
But I love Sharon and it's not worth worrying her. Going bush is a way to give me a chunk of what I need without going back to droving. Finding excuses to drive over the Nullabor are another way. If the move to the red centre goes ahead (and there's no reason why it shouldn't) that'll put me in the sort of environment I love with mimimal chance of reinfection.
I don't have to be a drover, but it's the outdoor work I'd most like to do. I'm thinking of trying out for a guide position if we get established at Yulara.
*whew* Long reply.